Database and index search programs that enable users to sort though all of the web sites
on the Internet are referred to collectively as
search engines. Several new search engines have recently come out with family-friendly
features. To use any of these tools, click on their name in the table below. Note that
both SafeSearch and Net Shepherd use PICS ratings which
can be faulty at times. However, the probability of accidentally coming across pornography
is much lower than if you were to use a standard search engine such as Excite or AltaVista.

As described in the section introducing the Internet,
servers are computers on the Internet that may, among other things, host web sites, chat areas, and
copies of newsgroups. Servers vary greatly in size
and capabilities. All servers have IP Addresses and
are linked to one another via the Internet. As with many other Net components, servers work in the background and users do
not need to know what they do.

Spam generally refers to an inappropriate newsgroup
posting. Examples of this include posting an advertisement for hamburgers in a vegetarian
newsgroup or crossposting a message (sending the same message to many newsgroups at the
same time).

A URL is the address of a site on the Internet. The
address can be for a newsgroup, a web site, or FTP site,
among other things. World Wide Web URLs always look
something like this: http://www.frog.com/catchflies.html. The letters before the colon
describe the type of site. "Http" denotes a web site and "ftp"
indicates an FTP site.

A web site is a location on the web containing information posted by an individual,
company or organization. Each web site has one or more web pages. A web site is like a
book, with the web pages being similar to the pages in a book.

The World Wide Web gets its name from the global nature of the Internet and the way site connections are interlaced
like a spider web. As described in the introduction, the WWW includes all the web sites in the world that are accessible through the
Internet.